Four or five - intrusive /r/ in English

Welcome to season 5 of English Sound Building! Today, we’re back with connected speech and another intrusive sound: intrusive /r/. Have fun! 

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Transcript

So, today we’re back with the letter /r/ again, this time looking at how we see it in connected speech, so called intrusive ‘r’. There are three intrusive sounds in English connected speech, and we’ve looked at the other two already: intrusive /j/ (in Episode 32, Be afraid, be very afraid), and intrusive /w/ last season in Episode 43, How are you?). 

So, we find intrusive /r/ in between words which end in a schwa /ə/ sound, including the schwa diphthongs /ɪə/,and /eə/, or with the long vowels /ɑː/, or /ɔː/, and then followed by a word starting with a vowel sound. Often there is a letter ‘r’ in the spelling, which would not be pronounced in non-rhotic accents (as discussed last week), and you may also see this referred to as ‘linking /r/’. For example, if we take this week’s title, “Four or five”, if I read “four” as an individual word I don’t pronounce the ‘r’, but if I link it with “or” you’ll hear that I do. However, intrusive /r/ can also come in where there is no letter ‘r’ in the spelling, for example if I say “idea” there is no ’r’ there in writing and no /r/ sound, but it ends with that schwa, so if I say “I have no idea about this”, we hear /r/ come in.

As with the other intrusive sounds, we can’t do this on a single-word level, because we need more than one word for the intrusion to happen. So, we’re going to start with some more of those common chunks of language where we here the intrusive /r/. 

Listen, and repeat.

1. an extra hour
2. better or 
3. fewer of
4. for example
5. here are 
6. is the camera on?
7. more of
8. saw a
9. the idea is 
10. there isn’t

Well done. Now, let’s practise those common chunks in some sentences. I’ll say a sentence that I might say on any given day. As usual, it would be fantastic practice for you to try to add your own sentence using the phrase in a context you might be speaking English in.

1. Let me know if you’d like an extra hour of class before your exam.
2. Is that better or shall we try reconnecting?  
3. There are fewer of these words.
4. We could use another tool, for example Skype.
5. Ok, here are today’s questions. 
6. I can’t see you. Is your camera on?
7. Let’s look at more of these.
8. I saw an interesting article yesterday.
9. So, the idea is to practise, not reach perfection. 
10. There isn’t a correct answer here, by the way.

Excellent stuff. For our final practise today, we’re going to circle back to some sentences we’ve used while focusing on other sounds in previous episodes. Here, if you’ve been matching my speed and connected speech, you’ve already produced intrusive /r/s. See if you remember them, and the sound we were originally focusing on, alongside the intrusive /r/. I’ve just chosen six for today, but I made longer list – check out the podcast script for all of them! (Did you notice that one: for all?!).

1. They converted the church after it burnt. 
2. Arthur thinks his brother is rather thinner than his father
3. Don’t swear anywhere in the square!
4. They are unprepared to care for their parents.
5.  The tourist quickly needs a ticket for his river trip.
6. Whether the weather is good, or whether the weather is not, whether the weather is cold, or whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not!

We’ve now looked at all three intrusive sounds in English, and if you’d like an easy way to remember them, this week’s title will help. 

You can remember “two or three” for intrusive /w/, “three or four” for intrusive /j/, and of course “four or five” for intrusive /r/. 

I often find that once my learners have started noticing intrusive sounds, they can’t stop, and they often have a lot of fun playing with them, and notice how much more fluent it makes their speech feel. I hope you get this great sense of achievement by practising often, too.

Full list:

1. His old clothes were almost yellow with smoke.
2. Whether the weather is good, or whether the weather is not, whether the weather is cold, or whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not!
3. The strong defender in the box blocked the long shot.
4. They converted the church after it burnt.
5. Arthur thinks his brother is rather thinner than his father
6. Once, I heard a mother utter,
7. For if she sells seashells by the seashore
8. A hundred air-inhaling elephants
9. The tourist quickly needs a ticket for his river trip.
10. They are unprepared to care for their parents.
11. Don’t swear anywhere in the square!
12. Four and twenty blackbirds
13. The student was interviewed by computer on Tuesday.
14. I told her I’d call!
15. The exports are exported daily.
16. The temperature on Wednesday was uncomfortable.
17. He’s probably desperate for a new camera
18. It was a natural question to ask the teacher in the situation
19. He can hold in his beak enough food for a week